


Swipe Right (Into My Arms)

by a_lrightevans



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Hook-Up, Social Media, Texting, Tinder, Well - Freeform, but w/e, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 21:19:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6626935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_lrightevans/pseuds/a_lrightevans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her thumb hovers over the unmatch button for a second, but then she switches back to his profile, and he really does have nice arms, so she just types out ‘you’re a massive prat and terminator is a shite movie, anyway’ and hits send instead.<br/>(James and Lily Tinder au)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

Lily yawns and checks the charge on her phone. Its at 80%, so she unplugs it from the wall and rolls over to the other side of her bed, scrolling through notifications as she does. A sixteen-line text from her mum about kitchen appliances that she can’t be bothered to read right now, twelve snapchats from Marlene, a text containing a row of love heart emojis from Alice, and at the bottom, a new Tinder match followed by a message.  _James_ , his name is, which just makes her think of the monarchy for some reason, but she opens up his profile. Its the bloke with the nice arms and the messy hair she’d swiped right for last night. She raises an eyebrow interestedly and flicks onto the message he’s sent. 

‘Favourite book, movie and food. Go.’ it says, and she rolls her eyes a bit, but types out ‘jane eyre, the notebook, my housemates carbonara’ and waits. His reply is almost instant. 

‘Wrong’ it says, and she frowns at her phone for a bit, before sending ‘what the fuck do u mean, ‘wrong’?’

‘I mean’ he sends, and she sighs, because of course he’s one of THOSE texters who sends his messages in fragments, as if you’re waiting on his every last  _word_ or something. ‘I put _my_ favourite book, movie and food in my bio. I was testing to see how much u paid attention.’

And then, 

‘You failed :/’

Lily lets out an honest-to-God laugh at that, because surely no one can be that fucking conceited, like, _in real life_. Her thumb hovers over the unmatch button for a second, but then she switches back to his profile, and he really _does_ have nice arms, so she just types out ‘you’re a massive prat and terminator is a shite movie, anyway’ and hits send instead. 

*

James pouts at his phone. 

‘S’matter with you?’ asks Sirius, and flops down beside him on his bed. 

‘Nothing. Girl on Tinder just said Terminator is a shite movie.’ says James, and Sirius snorts. ‘Girl on Tinder knows what the fuck she’s talking about, mate.’ Then he leans back, stretches out and pulls out his own phone.

‘Didn’t know you were on Tinder.’ he says after a bit.

James shrugs. ‘Something to do, isn’t it?’ Sirius doesn’t reply for a bit, scrolling through something on his phone. Then he stands up, and yanks James with him by the arm. 

‘C’mon its 11. Remus and Pete’ll be here soon-’

‘RIght, let me just reply-’ 

*

‘No YOU’RE shite.’ 

Lily screenshots the conversation so far, then screenshots one of James’s pictures in which he’s wearing nothing but a pair of jeans and his chest is unfairly muscled and his hair is pleasantly tousled and his glasses are just a tiny bit wonky, then sends them both to her whatsapp group chat, followed by ‘do you see my issue here?’ 

Within 10 minutes she’s gotten back two ‘unmatch him’s from Alice and Dorcas, one row of 100 emojis from Mary, and one ‘Suck his dick’ from Marlene, whom she ignores. She considers, then reopens the Tinder conversation. 

‘Does telling girls they’re shite usually work for you?’ 

‘No, but my symmetrical face and charming personality does’

‘I am yet 2 see evidence of that last part…’ 

‘Come for a drink with me tmmrw night,let me show u?’

‘Hm. prove it first. say something nice’

‘You’re well fit?’

‘Not even close’

‘You seem funny and your eyes are a ridiculous shade of green and, though its not as good as terminator, the notebook IS a bloody good movie?’

‘…… fine, ur on.’ 

*

‘Prongs, are you even _listening_?’

‘Huh? Yeah, you fixed the bike-’ 

‘And then crashed it again, like, _immediately_.’ adds Remus, trying not to grin. 

‘It isn’t funny,’ whines Sirius. ‘I’ve been working on it for _weeks_ ,’ 

‘Its a _bit_ funny, mate.’ says Peter, and Sirius stares daggers at him, but James claps Sirius on the shoulder and diverts his attention. 

‘I’ll help you work on it next week,’ he promises, and Sirius raises an eyebrow. 

‘You haven’t stopped staring at your phone all night. Sure you wont be married to this Tinder bird by then? You two seem to be pretty fucking _in love._ ’ 

James just rolls his eyes. 

‘Chill out, mate, we’re currently ranking the Star Wars movies from best to worst. Don’t think marriage is on the cards just yet.’ Sirius looks at him darkly. ‘Thats how it always starts.’ 

‘Course it is. Wanna blow up some zombies?’ Sirius nods just as Peter whines, ‘But there’s only two controllers, and you guys always _hog them-_ ’

‘Yeah, ‘cause you and Moony have shit aim _._ ’

‘Do not- well, I do a bit, but _Moony doesn’t_ -’

James takes their bickering as an opportunity to shoot a quick message to Lily.

‘Going 2 spend some quality time w Sirius. Talk 2 you later?’

‘Sure, wtf is a Sirius, tho?’

‘My best mate + better half. Kind of a deal breaker’

‘Oh, well I’m sure he’s lovely.’

‘HA. See you tmrrw, Lily.’

‘Looking forward to it.’ 


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She’s leaning across the table smiling at him like they’re both in on some fantastic secret and her hair is in her eyes and he can smell her lipgloss, and James wonders if it would be weird to ask to kiss her already.

‘Hey, srry i’m going to be a bit late. Traffic.’

‘Its cool, I’m not there yet, anyway’ James lies in reply, then slips his phone back into his pocket and orders a drink. It’s not like he’s been here long or anything, and he doesn’t want her to feel bad, and, _okay_ , so he doesn’t want to seem too eager, either, but whatever. He drinks his Jack and coke quickly so that it’ll be cleared away by time she’s here, then snapchats Sirius a picture of the empty seat captioned ‘:/’. Sirius replies with a pouty face captioned ‘I wuld never stand u up like this’ and James snorts and slides his phone back into his pocket.

*

When Lily arrives, James is already sitting in a booth. He’s taller than she’d imagined, and a little _ganglier_ , but not in a bad way exactly. He’s dressed in expensive looking jeans and a button-down shirt and she silently makes a bet with herself that he’s wearing too much aftershave. She watches him for a few seconds, giving herself the opportunity to change her mind if he gives her a weird vibe, but then he uses a hand to muss up his already untidy hair which is somehow annoying and endearing all at the same time and she finds herself making her way across the room and plonking down in front of him. She was right about the aftershave. He looks up, eyes wide for a moment, then breaks into a grin.

‘Nice to meet you,’ he says, and for one bizarre second he seems to be going in for a _handshake_ , but then his hand freezes and jumps back up to his hair and she stifles a laugh.

‘Yeah, back at you.’ she says. ‘Sorry again I was late- have you been here long?’ 

‘Not at all. Just sat down actually. How’s your, um, family?’ 

Lily huffs a laugh and leans back in her seat.

‘How’s my _family_? You’re a lot smoother over text, aren’t you?’ 

‘What are you talking about? I’m _smooth_. You just watch. I’ll have you falling in love with me by the end of the night-’ he insists, but this statement is somewhat diminished by the blush of pink creeping up his neck. 

Lily feels a bit bad, so she leans across the table to grin at him. 

‘I prefer you this way.’ 

*

She’s leaning across the table smiling at him like they’re both in on some fantastic secret and her hair is in her eyes and he can smell her _lipgloss,_ and James wonders if it would be weird to ask to kiss her already. He decides it definitely, unquestionably, irrefutably  _would_ be _,_ so he just laughs and knocks their feet together under the table.

‘Sicko. Bet you love watching people squirm.’

Her eyes crinkle with laughter and she sits back again, moving out of his space.

‘Drinks, then? I don’t want to leave without getting shitfaced on the house Rosé-’

‘You know, we don’t _have_ to get the house-’

‘Yeah, we do, because we’re splitting the bill and my student loan isn’t in yet.’

James considers arguing, but he figures its probably pointless. Plus, he’s never been great at toeing the line between being generous and flashing his cash about like some oblivious rich asshole, which, in fairness, he probably _is_. 

‘House it is.’ 

*

It only takes half a bottle of Rosé before they’re arguing over whether or not they’d support making a real life Jurassic Park if the technology was available, a bottle before Lily has her phone out showing off pictures of her cat wearing various pairs of sunglasses, and two bottles before they’re playing 21 questions like they’re sixteen or something.

‘What’s the maddest thing you’ve ever done?’ asks James at one point, a little slurred, and she tells him that its probably breaking into Waterworld after a night out for a drunken skinny dip. Lily gets the feeling he asked because _he_ wanted _her_ to ask the same thing, and she’s feeling benevolent, so she says ‘What about you?’ He immediately answers with ‘Wales. 2013. The drunken sheep debacle,’ and then launches into a story so utterly ridiculous that she ends up snorting with laughter because, for some bizarre reason, she actually believes every word of it. 

*

They’re standing on the curb waiting for a taxi and its freezing cold and the pavement is glowing in the streetlights and James is thinking that it’d be dead romantic if they _snogged_ right now, but when he points this out she just laughs and says ‘Well it wont be now you’ve said it out _loud_.’ He shrugs, and breathes onto his fingers to warm them up, but then she’s stepping closer to him and taking his hands and rubbing them between her own. 

‘Nice thinly veiled excuse to hold my hands.’ he says, and she steps on his foot and says ‘You ungrateful fuck,’ but doesn’t let go. 

*

She kisses him in the taxi. 

*

She kisses him again on the back of the neck whilst he’s fumbling with his door keys and it makes him shiver.

*

She kisses him _again_ in his bedroom and he kisses her back more sweetly than any cocky asshole she met on Tinder has any _right_ to, quite frankly, and then his hands are in her hair and she’s tugging at his stupid, expensive belt loops. 

*

She wakes up the next morning feeling like shit, and gently disentangles herself from James to check her phone. There are sixty-five messages in the group chat, the large majority of them from Marlene demanding updates, so she elbows James in the side. 

‘Hng? Oh- hey-’ 

‘Say cheese,’ she says, and he obliges blearily yet valiantly, giving a thumbs up whilst she takes a snap. 

‘What was that for?’ 

‘Shutting up nosy housemates.’ she says, and sends it to Marlene set on one second just to be annoying. 


End file.
